Falling
by rightxhere
Summary: Anguishing as he waits on news about Sam, Cam finds a file written to him on her laptop.


**Title: **Falling  
**Author: **Demelza  
**Fandom:** Stargate SG1  
**Pairing:** Sam/Cam  
**Disclaimer:** Stargate SG1 and its characters belong to all its owners. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission purely as a means of entertainment.  
**Episode:** Line in the Sand  
**Request:** What will Cam discover now that he knows Sam's password?  
**Warnings:** None  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Anguishing as he waits on news about Sam, Cam finds a file written to him on her laptop.  
**Beta:** Thanks to Jill for the amazing beta! All mistakes, though, are my own.

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Cam wasn't sure what the time was. When he checked his watch last it had been quarter past two in the morning.

Lying flat on his back with one of his blankets covering him at the waist, his eyes heavy and tired, Cam lifted his wrist to look at the black digits of his watch face. Blinking a few times to clear his slightly blurred vision, he read, 'Two-forty-six.'

Swearing under his breath, he rolled onto his side – putting the light of his bedside lamp behind him – and let out a sigh.

He hated this. _The waiting game._

Sitting around and patiently waiting for a knock on his quarters' door wasn't his idea of getting things done. Mind you, he hadn't always been like this. Hadn't always felt so wound up inside. Before his accident, though he had constantly kept himself busy with one chore after another, he had still been more laid back. More at ease with things getting done at a slower, yet still moderate, pace.

Then, after months laid up, he had grown a strong dislike for sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing. He could no longer just let the world slowly pass by around him while he lay in his bed without a clue of even half of the goings on around him. He had to be in the thick of the situation. Had to be doing something to try to _fix _a problem whenever it arose

It had been like that on P9C-882. Sure, he'd done what he could to help Sam, until he could try to figure out a way to get her through the gate, but there had been long hours of doing nothing more than standing still. He'd watched. _Waited._ He'd tried to figure a way out of their mess in much the same way he had read Sam and the rest of SG1 had done countless times before.

_Only, -I- couldn't, _he berated himself.

Not on his own, anyway. The only reason he got Sam home was _because_ of Sam. Yes, he'd done what he could to talk her out of giving up on him, but in the end it had still been because of Sam.

And now...now he felt like he was back at the start. Back to the point where there was nothing he could do.

It had been almost seven hours now. Seven hours since Landry had told him to 'go get some sleep' while the doctors did what they could to bring Sam's fever down. Truth was, he hadn't slept a wink. He'd closed his eyes a few times, _sure_, but all the momentary darkness did was bring the events of the day past into his mind over, and over, again.

_It wasn't just what happened to her, though._

He kept thinking about how helpless and useless he had felt there on that planet. He had tended her wound the way he was trained for in emergency situations. He did the best he could with the limited skills he had, but, _it wasn't enough_.

He'd needed to get her the hell out of there, and..._he couldn't_.

Swallowing hard, he could feel his heart race fast in his chest.

He blinked slowly, let out a long, calming exhale. _Breathe, Mitchell, just breathe, _he thought, closing his eyes.

"_You know, I've never met anyone quite like you before, Sam."_

_He watched as Sam smiled a small smile, one he had seen so many times before and knew to mean 'thanks, that's nice'. He reached his hand over against his better judgement, set it atop her arm with a smile of his own._

"_You're a great friend, Cameron," she'd replied, patting his hand where it lay resting on his arm._

That moment, though, was almost a year before his accident. A few months after they had met. It wasn't so long after that, he and Ferguson got word of the F-302 project for the Air Force. When he'd found out Sam was part of it too – and the SGC – he'd kind of wondered if maybe she had had something to do with him being offered a shot at getting into the programme.

He'd never asked her about it. Never wanted to bring up that embarassing moment when he'd tried in his own sort of way to tell her that he was interested in her.

Almost three years on, and he was lying in his quarters with his eyes open and focused on the dark corner of his room. It was then he felt that constant, resurfacing tinge of regret flood through him again.

The regret at not telling Sam what he'd wanted to tell her for so long. That she meant a lot more to him than just a friend. He'd honestly wanted to tell her what felt like a hundred times since then. Only, by the time he'd plucked up the courage, she'd started dating Pete. She was finally happy, _she'd told him_, and he didn't want to throw a spanner into the works and mess up all that happiness she truly deserved to have.

It must've been almost a year later that things for her had gone from seemingly perfect to bad after that. And, Cam had been there. He'd been her shoulder to cry on, if she needed it. Not that she had. Sam was strong. Hell, with all the shit he soon learned she'd seen over the years...all the loss and pain he she had gone through...he completely understood why she had been as strong willed as she had been.

Cam rolled back onto his back next, agitated. Tried to get his legs in a comfortable position, but there was something kind of lumpy just below his knee and he sat himself up halfway. Patting his hand on the bedding, he could feel a flat, hard surface under the blankets. He pulled the main blanket back a little, saw Sam's laptop sitting there.

He'd almost forgotten he'd taken it to his quarters for safe keeping.

Sitting properly, he pulled the laptop out from underneath the blankets and went to move it over to his desk, when he stopped. His one leg over the edge of the bed, he set the laptop before him and slowly ran his fingers over the casing.

_'There's a file...in my personal directory...letters, mostly.'_

Swallowing at hearing her voice in his mind, he slowly opened the laptop and switched it on.

He mentally kicked himself. _Shouldn't be doing this, Mitchell._

_'Password's 'fishing'.'_

It took a minute for the laptop to load, and when it did he saw a link on the desktop to the director Sam had mentioned. Using the pad at the front of the keyboard, he moved the cursor to the file and double-clicked it. A black box with blue writing popped up, prompting him for a password.

He hesitated for a moment, briefly closed his eyes, before slowly typing the password in one letter after the other. Done, his index finger hovered over the enter key.

_She only wanted you to know it if something happened to her. She wouldn't want you readin' her files otherwise._

He couldn't help himself, though. He let his hand fall and his finger hit the enter key hard.

Squinting slightly as a window popped up, his eyes scanned all the files. There were more than he'd thought he'd find, though the names he'd sort of figured he'd find anyway. Not only were there letters, there were also other documents with names he didn't want to attempt pronouncing, documents he assumed were details of scientific notations, breatkthroughs and...well, he was sure after Sam only God knew what they were about.

Focusing on the letters, he saw one for Cassie Fraser. One for Mark Carter, her brother. Daniel Jackson. Teal'c. Jack O'Neill. George Hammond. Vala Mal Doran, and a few others. And, there was one other name in the mix. Only, it wasn't in full as the others were. The file was merely titled, 'Cameron'.

Heartrate quickening for a few moments, Cam hesitated for a long minute, when he promptly double-clicked the file.

The load was momentary, and when it was done he saw only a small handful of paragraphs that made his brow crease in confusion.

A little saddened, he found himself reading the file from the beginning.

_Cameron,_

_This isn't two thousands words of why the last few years we've known each other has been an amazing experience. It isn't me rambling about all the things we've done together that have meant the world to me. It isn't, because I've tried to write this letter that way._

_I've written it and re-written it a dozen or more times, and none of it felt 'real'._

_What is real, is the regret I feel inside at never telling you how much I cared about you when I had the chance._

_Not when you had been injured saving our asses over the Antarctica. Not when I found out you had almost died from the Ori plague, or when I saw all the pain you were going through when you had those false memories implanted in your mind. And not when we lost you for that time on the Sodan planet._

_It wasn't until the Korolev was destroyed and I had thought you'd died, that I finally realized I was making up so many excuses as to why I could never tell you how I really felt. How, since working with you on SG1, that I had fallen in love with you._

_That, after losing my mom and my dad, I love you with more of my heart than I ever thought I could possibly love anyone with._

_I wish I had told you. And I pray that you forgive me for saying goodbye this way._

_I love you, Cameron._

_Sam_

His eyes welling with tears, Cam blinked and felt the warmth from them as they ran down his cheeks.

Sam..._loved him?_

Part of him had always hoped she did...that she felt the way he'd loved her since the moment they met.

Even now, knowing she did...he felt sad. Sad because they were both members of the Air Force. And, as such, they were both trapped by Air Force regulations. Regulations that stipulated there could be no personal relationship between them. At least, not without consequence.

Closing his eyes and forcing more tears down his face, Cam closed Sam's laptop in anguish. He finally knew Sam felt the same for him as he felt for her...and he _still _couldn't tell her he loved her.

_And I do, Sam. I love you. I love you with every part of me!_


End file.
